Porterfield Returns
PorterfieldOnce upon a time locals Porterfield returned to Boston, kicking off a line-up of progressive jazz at Midway Cafe on Friday, 21 October 2022. It was the second half of a two-show night at the Jamaica Plain music club. The crowd from the earlier show, featuring a Dead tribute band, was just clearing out as the proggers were rolling in. For a few magical moments the street curb out front was the contact high hub of the universe. Clamb and Lon materialized out of the haze to fill the rest of the bill.
A small fleet of AV geeks in red jumpsuits, who went by the moniker Digital Awareness, was also in attendance. They scrambled around the venue like ants on a picnic blanket, plugging cords into strange and unexpected places.
Their main priorities seemed to be operating the psychedelic lightshow, filming the event, and providing sundry forms of electronic wizardry. Shades of DEVO roadies.
When the first act started the red jumpsuits bunkered behind an instrument panel at stage right and cooed with pleasure throughout the show each time the buttons beneath their fingertips changed colors.
Digital AwarenessPorterfield’s set was something like a homecoming. The four-piece band used to call Boston home. And Boston was glad to have them, nominating the jazz-rockers for BMA’s Best Jazz Artist once or twice.
Their fusion sound was in full effect Friday night, combining the brassy tone of saxophone with propulsive, guitar-driven rock rhythms and solid knob twiddling.
The group performed without a bass player. The low end of the soundscape was chiefly provided by the synth player, who was rocking a cowboy hat for half the night. Nowadays all but one member has decamped for New York, but the Midway Cafe still has a place in their hearts.
ClambClamb opened its set with a shaggy, lifted version of David Bowie’s “Fame.” The “earthmagik peacelords from Allston” can clamb-ify any song or sound, running it through their the prog-jazz salad shooters according to the current mood.
On Friday night their mood seemed to be largely determined by a bad batch of lamprey eels that the band had eaten prior to the gig.
To be clear, lamprey eels are edible and considered a delicacy by many. But they look kinda nasty. Here’s some other stuff to know, via Huffpost:
As babies, sea lampreys are blind and feed by filtering micro-organisms through the water. But as adults, they attach themselves to other fish (or even dolphins) by “using their sucking mouthparts” ― a jawless mouth full of teeth ― “to attach themselves to the host’s body,” the Alaska Department of Fish and Game explains. Oh and by the way, they can kill up to 40 fish a year.
Clamb overcame its queasiness with good humor, waving to the crowd after every song like Miss America riding a float at a Thanksgiving Day parade. It was a real schtick.
We wrote up a blurb recently about comedic callbacks in live music shows, drawing the conclusion that the move usually falls flat. But the room was in fine fettle and waved right back. Sometimes it's the person telling the joke, not the joke itself, that makes you laugh.
LonExtra points for one particular song, a slow neon cowboy groover, that sounded like Clamb was dressing up as the house band from Twin Peak’s Bang Bang Bar for Halloween.
Closer Lon brought its own pep squad, which chanted “Mow the Lon!” in between jams. The five-piece proggy big-banders played juiced up jazz rock riffs with the energy of late night television jobbers. Shades of G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band. Extra points for playing us out like Keyboard Cat.
Clarinet waters run deep with Improbable Beasts at Midway Cafe.